A few questions - interview with death metal band from Germany - TERMINAL CARNAGE.
Answered Stefan Walter, thank you!
Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?
The project TERMINAL CARNAGE was started in winter 2019/2020 by myself - Stefan Walter (guitars, bass and vocals). The TERMINAL CARNAGE headquarters are in Wiesenttal, a small community in Upper Franconia, Germany.
The idea to start the project TERMINAL CARNAGE came up approximately one year after the split-up of ADORING HUMAN FLESH (AHF) the former band where I played guitar.
I had my own musical vision apart from AHF so I started to work on this by myself. At this point I was not able to convince a former band member during the song writing process, so I decided to compose and record the songs just by myself. Regarding style there were no limits as I have musical influences all across the metal genre prefering more extreme styles such as Death Metal. After having finished a bunch of songs I presented the recordings to Markus (former Drummer of AHF). Markus liked the song material and agreed to join TERMINAL CARNAGE. Our Death Metal-duo was now ready to take the next steps…
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
Guitars, bass and vocals I recorded in my homestudio (WARHEAD PRODUCTIONS, Wiesenttal/Germany) as mentioned before. The recordings and the mix was finished in spring 2020 just a few days before the first Corona-lockdown happened. The drums were played by Markus in the basement of his house while I was doing the recording job sitting in the corner of the room hitting the record button and drinking beer 😊
The whole drum recording took place in various sessions and was finished end of summer 2020. After that Markus and me worked on final arrangements and at one point reached the state of mutual satisfaction regarding the mix. Now a mastering engineer was needed to give THE SICKENING REBIRTH the required, final polish. The choice for the mastering job fell on Simon Hammer (REBOUND STUDIO, Nuremberg) after having received a great sounding test track from Simon. All the recorded tracks were shared virtually with the mastering studio due to Corona and the shit involved, such as dusk-to-dawn curfew, etc.
Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?
Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?
Yes, TERMINAL CARNAGE definitely needed a label to release THE SICKENING REBIRTH as we are not a band in the common sense. Having various mastered test tracks of the album available those were sent to various labels. Actually we were surprised about the positive feedback from the labels. Nevertheless, the choice to release THE SICKENING REBIRTH fell on GREAT DANE RECORDS in France. Raphael, the guy from GREAT DANE RECORDS who is in charge for us, is a companionable partner, music fan and death metal maniac as we are. In a first step GREAT DANE RECORDS offered us to release the album as digipak CD and digital download. The digipak CD is limited to 500 copies, but we are confident that there is more to come…
GREAT DANE does a really good job, takes care of the promotion and all the other issues. We are happy with our partnership and would like to send a big ‘THANK YOU’ to Raphael and GREAT DANE RECORDS.
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
I wrote the lyrics after the guitar tracks were finished. Peace by peace and word by word - writing the lyrics for me is an important and time consuming job. A lot of passion, personal thoughts and opinions fill my lyrics... the world surrounding us delivers enough material for death metal lyrics.
Supernatural, spiritual or religious subjects are not the core issues here. Some lyrics are serious, some you can see with a wink of the eye but always with a certain, true or at least conceivable background.
Here a brief summary of the songs and the lyrical content. But it’s always best if you read the lyrics (printed inside the booklet) and make yourself your own picture...
The Sickening Rebirth:
Is actually a song about nationalism gaining ground worldwide and that humanity failed to learn from history in this regard.
Dead Mass:
In this song our society is described as braindead mass living to consume, kneel before the establishment and as long as the "dead mass" is fed they do not revolt.
Bereaved Cry:
This song desribes a war scenery, soldiers that die and the bereaved suffering at home while warmongers lough. It is an anti-war song.
Chaos The New World Order:
As the title of the song says, we live in a world where politicians spread lies, rules are broken, facts are denied and so on...
The individual is powerless and has to accept the nuisance while the world is sinking in total chaos.
Involuntary Organ Donor:
Is a song about a person who sold his own soul and organs for cash. It is a song about illegal organ trade.
Least Evil:
In this song warfare in times of digitalisation is picked as central theme. Digitalization controls life and we became totally dependendent on internet and the digital world.
So what will happen if this environment is switched off ?
Years Of Demise:
This song is actually a hold out slogan. Hard times are desribed, the struggle for survival and a light at the end of the tunnel. So after hard times, better times will follow.
Obituary After Death:
This song is about people who try to gain as much might and money as possible, maybe thinking they are immortal. But life is finite and all that remains will be the obituary...
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website? What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
The graphics including logo I created by myself. I think these things are important for a metal and especially a death metal band and should somehow reflect the musical character of a band.
I tried my best and my intention was/is that everything, so the whole album, looks and feels as it would be from the same mould. Of course I would love to just concentrate on the musical part of TERMINAL CARNAGE but somehow it is also fun to work on the look...
Social networks and the internet itself eliminated the age of tape trading and print paper magazines regarding music publications beside other... well, to speak for myself – I am ‚old-school‘, so quess what I prefer... I like to have something in my hands!
On the other hand it’s fascinating how people interact nowadays. The speed news and publications are spread all around the globe is amazing. Fact is, in this Corona-crisis a publication such as THE SICKENING REBIRTH would not have been possible without the internet and the possibilities therein...
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
‚Idolise‘ is maybe the wrong word. To speak for myself, my influences are so widely diversified that I have to smile if my music is compared to one or two specific bands. Of course there are bands out there who influenced the way I play guitar but on the other hand I never really played cover songs or was nailed to a certain style of playing... so in a way, it’s my way!
But of course it’s important to have a comparison to describe music to somebody who never heard it before. In case of TERMINAL CARNAGE I would say and also support people who have the opinion we sound like a mixture of BOLT THROWER, OBITUARY and ASPHYX. Due to some melodies also PARADISE LOST I would like to mention... AUTOPSY, NECROPHAGIA, MONSTROSITY, MORBID ANGEL and CELTIC FROST are also influencing our music if I quote people desribing our style. Somebody recently said we sound like the TYPE O NEGATIVE of Death Metal which I think is funny...
How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
Gigs under the banner TERMINAL CARNAGE have never been played as we are acting as a duo at the moment. This won’t change as long as there is no way to come together as a band and clubs are closed anyway due to Corona. Let’s see if we come up with a live line-up at one point.
Of course Markus and me played in various bands before and always enjoyed playing live. I prefer playing festivals as this is always something special but of course a good club show sometimes kicks ass even more...
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
Never change a running system – first of all, we will continue like this. I write the songs, torture the strings and my throat and Markus beats the hell out of his drums.
Our plan is to release our 2nd album beginning 2022. Most songs are written and we are in the middle of the recording phase. The album title is fixed and the artwork in preparation... if you like THE SICKENING REBIRTH prepare for a whole lot more!
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
You can directly send us a mail to: terminal-carnage@gmx.de
Of course we are on Facebook, Bandcamp, YouTube and Instagram as well... choose your channel and get in touch with us!
Thanx for the interview.
Thank you Jakub for your interest in TERMINAL CARNAGE and feel free to stop by for a beer if there is the chance. Cheers to the Czech/Upper Franconian neighborhood.
Stefan / TERMINAL CARNAGE
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